


Avoir Ouï Dire

by Ezlebe



Category: Franklin and Bash - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 13:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ezlebe/pseuds/Ezlebe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay, he was doing something, but it was totally half Peter’s fault anyway for trying to make him do work after work hours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avoir Ouï Dire

“What?” Peter demands, finally reacting to the sidelong looks he’s been receiving all night. He narrows his eyes at Jared, who is no doubt under the completely false impression that he’s been subtle.  
  
“What?” Jared repeats, as if confused, but the guilty way he glances back to his computer gives away the act. “I didn’t say anything.”  
  
Peter turns his eyes to his paperwork, spread across the couch and the table, and hopes that he’s put a stop to it by calling him out.  
  
He lets Jared get away with one, and then another, but the third time he decides enough and drops a stack of papers onto the floor in a huff, “Alright, have I missed some prank or something?”  
  
“Uh, no?” Jared responds, hunching down slightly in his chair. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“You keep looking over here, and it’s starting to make me feel paranoid,” Peter answers, standing up and approaching to Jared’s desk, where he’s supposed to be going over transcripts and not sending creepy stares across the office.  
  
Jared scrambles to close out of something on the computer before Peter can see it, which sends a million red flags up. and as he glances over the desk, it’s plain that none of the transcripts have even been touched.  
  
“Uh-uh, open that back up,” Peter demands, trying to reach for the mouse, slapping Jared’s hands away as he attempts to shoo.  
  
“There wasn't anything open,” Jared denies weakly, messing some papers about on the desk as he pushes Peter away. “I was doing the uh- uh, Closterfeld briefs.” Peter makes a lunge for the mouse again, but Jared throws it across the room and dives over the keyboard, hiding it with his body.  
  
“I’ll get Pindar to hack the computers again if you don’t tell me,” Peter says calmly, walking over to the discarded mouse and picking it up from where it’d landed behind his desk.  
  
“I wasn’t doing anything,” Jared says into the keyboard.  
  
~  
  
Okay, he was doing something, but it was totally half Peter’s fault anyway for trying to make him do _work_ after _work hours_.  
  
He’d only been innocently, oh so innocently, clicking through various inter-office memos, and if some of them happened to actually be for other people, well that wasn’t really his fault- It was Pindar’s, for giving him the resources with which to do it.     
  
Technically, he’d started a few months earlier with the noble goal of seeing what their new coworkers thought of them, maybe nip any sort of nay saying in the bud. However, if it actually ended with him in an LA lawyer chat room under an assumed name, well that wasn’t really anyone’s business, and if he had asked subtle questions regarding the availability of himself, well that wasn't either.  
  
Everyone lies on the internet anyway.  
  
Which is how he gets to now, Peter giving him the fish eye from across the room as he curls his arms around the keyboard to hide his fake-self very recently claiming to see them making out through their frosted glass doors in the middle of the night.    
  
Yeah, it totally went there, all for the sake of an imaginary someone’s popularity.  
  
That, and user JackandJane was totally Janie trying to fuck with his head, because no one else could possibly know about his turtle pajama pants except maybe Carmen and Pindar. If he somehow also rationalized this as getting back at her by fake second-hand claiming to have been sleeping Peter the entire time they’d been dating, well, she deserved it for making Peter play nothing but sad songs for six months.  
  
Seriously, it has nothing to do with shoving it in Janie’s face that Jared is way - oh shit Peter can click the mouse without even touching the desk.  
  
Goddamn that laser technology.  
  
He tries in vain to hide the screen as Peter reopens all of his tabs, and groans when the other man leans forward with a quirked brow.  
  
“What the hell is this?”  
  
“It’s a chat-room,” Jared answers slowly, trying to give the impression that he thinks Peter is stupid for asking, and should just stop now before he insults his own intelligence further.  
  
Sadly, all Peter does is give him a flat look and shove him over to scroll down through the myriad of comments on their imaginary sex lives.  
  
Peter and Jared’s, not Peter and Jared’s Imaginary Paralegal Self who he imagines to look like a cross between Scarlet Johansson and Katie Sackhoff.  
  
“Does everyone in LA think we’re married?” Peter asks after a tense moment. “Married exhibitionists?”  
  
Jared takes a moment to pretend to think about his answer, “No?”  
  
He nervously taps at the edge of the keyboard as Peter scrolls through the names, and ducks his head when he sees some of his own input. Luckily, closing the browser had logged him out, so Peter can’t figure out that it was actually Jared illustrating the main story.  
  
Hopefully, anyway, since his screen name is PoloQueen, which should point towards a female, frequent polo player and not a male who hasn’t played since his asshole dad sold his ponies.  
  
Peter hums and the scrolling gets slower, Jared wincing as PoloQueen’s name comes up waxing poetic about Peter’s chest covering Jared’s back in dialogue that he maybe, sort of stole from a romance novel he pretends to have never found in Carmen’s room.  
  
“This PoloQueen has a knack for purple prose, holy christ,” Peter snorts, “Hey, give me a sticky note, I’m totally writing down the link to this.”  
  
“What are you going to do, sign up?” Jared asks, laughing as he silently cringes on the inside, hoping nothing gives him away. Thankfully, the rumors are false, Peter doesn’t have a direct line to his brain, and to all appearances simply writes down the link.    
  
“I might,” Peter muses, sticking the note to the inside of his laptop. “Maybe I’ll sign up as some hot paralegal and say how awesome a lay I am.”  
  
Jared freezes for a moment, worried he’s been caught out, but Peter seems to be more concerned with packing his stuff up and doesn’t appear to notice. He takes a moment to worry how invested he is in Peter’s continued ignorance of the chat room, something that he normally would have shared the instant he found it, but manages to willfully pass the feeling off as simply a worry about trail of evidence.  
  
“Oh yeah, that’s real classy,” Jared mutters in belated response, picking up his own stuff to follow Peter out of the office.  
  
Peter throws an arm around his shoulders, pulling him along towards the Prius as he waves a dismissive hand, “You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first.”  
  
“Right,”  Jared agrees sarcastically. “Any chance to fabricate my sexual prowess on the internet, I’m totally right there.”  
  
~  
  
Jared spends half the next morning reading through the chatroom from yesterday after he’d left, looking for any new screen-names that pop out at him, or weird, ill-fitting comments that scream Peter, but there’s nothing. After only a few comments wondering where PoloQueen had gone, the conversation quickly turned to how terrible the DA’s lounge room is in comparison to Colton Assoc’s.  
  
He’s honestly a little disappointed at the way Peter’s acting, having expected more of a reaction than the shrug he’d gotten at breakfast.  Maybe even some sort of plan to figure out who was libeling their good names to colleagues, not this apathetic response to the anonymous face of the internet.  
  
Granted, it was _him_ libeling their good name, but that isn’t really the point.  
  
“So,” Jared says, disturbing the silence in their office and looking up to see Peter raising an eyebrow. “What-” His question falters when Peter looks down, practically blowing him off. He swallows,  “How much of that did you read last night?”  
  
“Why?” Peter asks blandly, not even taking his eyes off whatever is on his laptop.  
  
“Compare notes on screen names?” Jared pulls out of thin air, put off by Peter’s attitude. “Just out of mutual interest.”  
  
Peter looks up at that, eyeing him with a curious look, “Sure.”  
  
Jared looks down at his own computer, suddenly worried that Peter’s figured him out, and plans on mentioning PoloQueen somewhere between SpaceCadet and FinalCtDwn to gauge the reaction.  
  
“Jack and Jane,” Jared opens with, looking over the edge of his laptop.  
  
Peter tilts his head, shutting his own laptop with a click. He sets his chin in his hand and looks boredly at Jared, “Pindar.”  
  
“Pindar?” Jared asks, honestly taken aback. “I thought Janie.”  
  
“Janie?” Peter responds with a raised eyebrow, “Why?”  
  
“Why’d you think Pindar?” Jared responds petulantly, when he can’t think of a better reason than the fact ‘Jane’ is in the name.  
  
“Because he complains about the state of the Infeld/Daniels filing system and the fact I spilled margaritas at our last party, which Janie wasn’t at,” Peter explains patiently, raising a challenging eyebrow. “I think Janie is CatWoman.”  
  
“That’s stretching it a little far,” Jared mutters, only half sarcastic, though mostly about the nickname. He easily remembers Cat-Woman, who regularly inputs their own comments regarding Jared and Peter’s relationship status.  
  
Peter makes a noise of disagreement, “Janie has a lot to say about the state of our relationship, as much as I hate thinking about it.”  
  
“What, really?” Jared asks.”You and me, or you and her, relationship?”  
  
“She calls you my boyfriend almost everytime she comes in here,” Peter says dryly. “Also, Cat-Woman hates the courthouse parking garage, and the rant in here is practically word for word to Janie’s.”  
  
“No one likes that parking garage,” Jared grumbles, wincing at a memory of almost backing into a court reporter once, because the lights were so dim. It’s admittedly one of the few things Janie and he agree about.  
  
“Alright then, how about Cakewalk27?” Peter asks with barely restrained smirk of victory, looking at his phone.  
  
“That partner from Hastings/Miles who brings an actual wedding cake to every single interfirm meeting,” Jared answers with little doubt. “Remember the one shaped like a shark last month?”  
  
Peter tilts his head in agreement, “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”  
  
“PolkaSpk,” Jared says next, “I was thinking either Karp or -”  
  
“Karp is totally JamMaster,” Peter interrupts. “He has a terrible name _and_ is super chummy with JackandJane.”  
  
Jared frowns with mild distaste, “We never should have let him help with that porn.”  
  
“Right?” Peter agrees, “And Pindar never told us about it, that dick.”  
  
“Traitor,” Jared mumbles. “Okay, then PolkaSpk is definitely a mystery.”  
  
“We’ll come back to it,” Peter tells him, “Okay, PoloQueen?”  
  
Jared freezes, almost sure that Peter is addressing him, before he looks up and realizes that it was meant as the next theory. “No clue, except that she probably works here,” he says with an exaggerated grimace. “Maybe that redhead associate that keeps trying to jump in our cases?”  
  
“Could be,” Peter acknowledges. He looks down at his desk, messing with a couple of pencils, and stays silent for a long moment. “I was thinking someone that I fucked over who’s trying to get me back.”  
  
Jared immediately finds himself frowning in confusion, slightly shocked that Peter came up with that sort of theory. “Why just you? I’m part of it, too,” he disagrees slowly, hoping it doesn’t sound overly suspect.    
  
“Yeah, but - I don’t know how much you read - but it seemed more concentrated on me,” Peter pauses with a frown, “Like she has experience with it happening to her, you know? It doesn’t read like you’re the one doing, it’s like you’re the one it’s happening to; does that make sense?”  
  
“Kind of?” Jared agrees slowly, because it totally makes sense, and he can’t believe he didn’t catch himself when he wrote it. Also, he really should have foreseen that this conversation would be awkward.  
  
“Like it’s- They concentrate a lot on what I do, not so much on you, so I kind of feel like it’s someone that just dragged you into it,” Peter mutters, eyes still firmly on his desk, twirling a pen between his fingers. “It’s probably some girl I slept with and forgot to call, so now they’re out to get me or something.”  
  
Jared stares at him, wishing he could go back in time and physically stop himself from falling into this terrible idea, especially since it apparently ends with making _Peter_ feel guilty.  
  
“Dude, it’s just the internet,” Jared comforts awkwardly. “She’ll probably stop when she gets bored.”  
  
“I even read all the archives,” Peter says in a sudden rush, “And she’s been doing it for weeks.” He rubs his forehead, “What if she never gets bored- what if people start to believe her, Jared?”  
  
Jared bites his lip anxiously. He’s pretty sure anyone who doesn’t know them already _does_ believe her, maybe even a few who do, and in addition to that, he’s just realized that he’s sort of been cyberbullying Peter without even realizing it.  
  
Basically, he’s that nerdy kid from the case with the teacher from Hightower, which is depressing on so many levels.  
  
“I don’t think you really... It’s not that bad,” Jared says stiltedly. “I’m sure you’ll still be able to pick up.”  
  
Peter groans into his hands, head hitting his desk in such a melodramatic reaction that Jared is a little taken aback. “That’s not what I meant, at all.”  
  
Jared has scant thought where he wonders if Peter figured it out last night and decided to mess with him a little, because honestly that would make more sense than what’s going on in front of him right now.  
  
“And I just -” Peter sits up and looks at the ceiling, running a hand through his hair. “It made me think about stuff I don’t really like to think about, you know?”  
  
It takes a moment for Jared to actually understand, but soon the words almost physically wind him. Hearing that is a lot more painful than he ever thought it would be, _wow_. It makes him seriously want to punch Peter for a heated moment, before it cools down into something more resigned and depressed.  
  
“Yeah,” Jared answers, swallowing, “I can see where you’re going with that.” He looks down at the computer, at the cursor blinking in the chat box, and wonders if smashing the keyboard would be too dramatic.  
  
~  
  
Jared avoids thinking about it anymore until the evening, when he’s at home at his desk with Peter a few feet away rather than twenty, and wonders if he should be keeping up the ruse to stop anyone from getting too suspicious.  
  
He’s doesn't even want to open the main window, though, the fact that it’s affecting his relationship with Peter outside of his little pocket of cyberspace has him anxious to close this ridiculous chapter in his life and pretend it never happened. Especially the part where Peter found it and admitted that the thought of sleeping with Jared now makes him so uncomfortable to the point of practical misery.  
  
“Did you ever actually finish proofing the Closterfeld briefs?” Peter asks from the couch, where he seems to be single-handedly eating what appears to be the entire freezer.  
  
Jared sighs, conceding as he pulls them up on the laptop, resolving to at least get this done before he goes into his room and decides to officially join Pindar in the hermit club. “If you keep eating like that you’re going to get fat,” he mutters sideways, freezing when he catches Peter’s unamused look. “Not that...I would care.”  
  
Peter doesn’t say anything back, only returns to his box of tiny ice cream bites - that Jared had actually been looking forward to eating some day - his attention turning to the TV with an indecipherable look.  
  
Jared’s in the midst of cursing whichever associate said they went over these as he corrects another typo, when there’s a popup on the side of his screen; ‘Cat-Woman’ is sending him a frowny face over AIM. He hadn’t even known he was still signed in.  
  
He huffs, hanging his head as he darts a look at Peter before clicking it, the knowledge that this is probably Janie hanging heavy as he also realizes that he’s actually been catering to her rather than upsetting her this entire time.  
  
‘What happened yesterday _?’_ The message reads, and he can practically hear her familiar, accusing tone.  
  
He taps the desk a second before answering, ‘I had to leave, something came up irl. I have to go now too, sry. ‘  
  
Jared quickly signs out and looks at Peter again, taking a relieved breath and switching back to the Closterfeld briefs. He angrily highlights a line in pink to write an angry note to the the associate who reads this that they should stop repeating the same thing over again, because it’s redundant and makes them look like an idiot. Jared’s pretty sure it was the guy who wears an obnoxious amount of Axe and keeps trying to get in Peter’s pants.  
  
Not that he cares, maybe Peter wants to ‘help’ the twinky bastard with the so difficult paperwork. They can even use the couch in the office, so there’s no chance - okay he has to stop. They haven’t slept together for years, in fact he has no idea why he’s in such a pissed off mood about it.  
  
Which is a complete lie, he really needs to get some mental help.  
  
He continues to bitterly proof the briefs, taking out his excess shame and disappointment from earlier on some nameless associate, working himself into such a zone that his phone happily chirping at his side actually startles him so bad he types a excess line of F’s into the notes section.  
  
It’s from Janie, containing the ominous words: ‘I know.’  
  
Jared stares at it for a few moments, willing the message to disappear, but it stays disappointingly solid, glaring accusingly at him before dimming when it times out. He decides to ignore it for now, slowly highlighting and typing another edit, carefully making the corresponding correction to the solid copy as he avoids looking in Peter’s direction.  
  
‘I’ve known forever.’ Another message pops up, joining the earlier one to compound his dismay.  
  
‘You’re the only person I know who’s ever played polo.' reads the next one.  
  
‘And slept with Peter _._ ’ reveals another.  
  
“Will you fucking pick that up,” Peter suddenly exclaims, glaring over.    
  
Jared glares back, “Why are you being such a pissy bitch.”  
  
“Why are you -”  
  
“Mom and Dad are fighting,” Pindar yells from his room.  
  
“Stop fighting,” Carmen whines exaggeratedly from her desk. “All you do is fight,” she says in a convincingly teary tone.  
  
“Shut up,” Jared mutters, hunching over his desk and grabbing his phone.  
  
‘Why are you texting me _,_ ’ he sends back, hoping she’ll go for the out.  
  
She doesn’t, as soon after he receives another message, ‘Peter came in and wanted to know if I actually knew you.’  
  
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Jared tries again.  
  
‘If you don’t stop denying it, I might decide to be helpful and suggest Pindar track the IP,’ her next message reads.  
  
‘What did he say _?’_ Jared finally asks, reluctantly yielding.  
  
Janie doesn’t answer for a long time, but when she does, it’s in _paragraphs_.  
  
‘He thinks you're some angry hook up that hates him and he wanted to know if it was me because apparently I scream the type but then he said he knew it wasnt me cause I hate you guys but i don’t actually hate you guys and he said he wanted to know why id encourage someone to do that to you t -’  
  
‘Two but then he sort of got sad and i dont like you but you need to fix this because otherwise winning cases against you guys wont be fun anymo’  
  
'Sorry i hit enter on accident’  
  
Which implies there is much more,  and Jared momentarily toys with the idea of turning off his phone.  
  
‘Anyway he thinks you hate him or something and I KNEW YOU DIDNT SLEEP WITH HIM WHEN WE WERE TOGETHER IM NOT STUPID’  
  
‘Caps on purpose’  
  
‘Hate him as you not as polobitch because he apparently like slighted you or something i got the whole story like two months after we broke up because apparently he decided i was the one to talk to about being a bad boyfriend’  
  
‘Wait when did I get slighted?’ Jared types in an attempt to interrupt.  
  
There’s a disturbingly long pause in Janie’s textual diatribe before he gets a short, ‘What??? _’_  
  
Jared sighs, typing in, ‘Peter’s never slighted me we arent living in 1876 _._ ’  
  
‘He said he told you he wanted to marry me or something crazy shit before we started dating and then afterwards you refused to suck his cock ever again. I dont remember details it was an uncomfortable convo’  
  
Jared raises his eyebrows, because Janie is so vulgar over text it’s almost scarring, and tries to remember that ever happening. He only remembers one instance that might be what she’s describing, where Peter, incredibly drunk, talked about getting married and like having a family. It was roughly when Jared resolved to stop sleeping with him because- _because_ obviously that was never going to happen with him involved. “I stopped fucking him because he started talking about happy families and I can’t get in the way of that shit, it was a mutual thing.”  
  
‘Well he was really broken up about it he drank my whole bar’  
  
Jared rolls his eyes, ‘You dont have a bar.’  
  
‘Fine it wasnt a bar but it was like a bottle of whiskey i got from my dad for graduating law school, he still hasnt replaced it’  
  
He sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and leaning over his desk, resisting the urge to groan. While he barely acknowledges Janie’s tenuous frenemy status on a good day, he has to admit they have a disturbing amount in common, which sadly includes Peter, and apparently, Drunk, stupid Peter.  
  
‘Anyway I didnt say it was you but I said he knew who it was, so you should probably just confess that you still want to bone him because as much shit as we went through i still dont want him to be sad all the time hes like a puppy,’ Janie types in another paragraph, and he can barely believe what she’s saying.  
  
‘You made him sad for a crazy long time. It was like a breakup song of the week calendar _.’_  
  
‘I made him sad for a few weeks, you made him sad for the rest of it _._ ’  
  
‘Did not _,_ ’ he denies, deciding he should probably leave the room with the way Peter is looking at his phone like it’s personally offended him.  
  
Unsurprisingly, the phone buzzes in his hand again before he even passes the partition. ‘Did too, I think he was under the impression there was some sort of open relationship going on until you shut him down _._ ’  
  
‘Are you drunk right now?’ Jared types as he sits down on his bed. He puts the phone face down on his dresser and groans into his hands, hoping this will just stop so he can go to sleep and wake up tomorrow like none of this ever happened.  
  
Sadly, it does little to stop her, and soon the texts turn into a ringtone, buzzing angrily against the wood before he can even get off his tie.  
  
“What?” He snaps into the phone.  
  
Janie actually has the gall to laugh at him, “So, I just figured something out.”  
  
“Great,” Jared answers flatly.  
  
“You hate me because you think I tried to steal Peter,” She says, “But Peter was the one who initiated the relationship, which means you-"  
  
Jared resists the urge to choke himself with a tie, “This is not news, Ross.”  
  
“I mean, I just realized that you encouraged him to go out with me - or not me, maybe just anyone - because you thought it was for his own good,” Janie points out, tone victorious, “But Peter didn’t know, so when we broke up he thought he could just fall back into the relationship with you. Which I’ll admit is sort of arrogant-”  
  
“Janie, we are not friends,” Jared interrupts. “Are you bored or something?”  
  
“Stop being a bitch, and listen,” Janie snaps. “For the last two months or so you’ve been using a sock puppet to encourage people to think you and Peter are married.”  
  
“I never said married, that was the cake guy and FinalCtDwn-,”  
  
“FinalCtDwn is Ellen Swatello,” Janie interrupts smoothly.  
  
Jared pauses, trying to resolve the bubbly, slightly insane personality to fit with Swatello, “No.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“FinalCtDwn has been perpetuating crazy fantasies that we're adopting babies. I cannot see Swatello being that- That cute,” Jared denies. “Maybe that crazy.”  
  
“Who are we to judge what kind of persona someone chooses on the internet, _PoloQueen_ ,” Janie points out smugly, definitely not pulling any punches. “Anyway,” she continues, “You and Peter need to get your act together, it’s been like ten years. If this were a romance novel, people would be looking for one of you to have a near death experience to speed up the plot. Personally, I’m hoping it’s you.”  
  
Jared rolls his eyes to the ceiling, wonder if it’s just biding it’s time to swallow him and return him back to his actual dimension, where he isn’t talking about feelings with Janie Ross and no one slept with their best friend.  
  
~  
  
Peter pauses outside Jared’s door, ignores Carmen’s suspicious look, and tries to figure out why Jared thought he had to leave the room to talk on the phone.  
  
“Please stop talking,” Jared says, voice clear through the open doorway. “That was literally years ago, we’re not even really the same people.”  
  
There’s a long pause where Peter decides to lean against the wall, waiting and wondering how long it’ll be before he can make the appropriate entrance for questions.  
  
Jared groans, something banging against the wall. “Okay, no, having parties every week does not make us still college students.” There’s a long pause. “It doesn’t mean- he said _today_ that he doesn’t like to think about it, okay. So would you just shut up and face the fact you’re wrong?”  
  
The person on the phone says something that has Jared scoffing, and Peter doesn’t realize Jared’s coming towards the door until his fingers peek across the wood of the doorjam, curling against edge.  
  
“I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean in a sad way; it sounded a lot more like he meant it in a ‘likes to pretend it never happened’ way.” Jared practically growls, and doesn’t notice Peter until he looks up, fingers going white knuckled against the wood. “You are- oh shit,” he yelps, staring up in something like mortification. “No, not you,” he recovers quickly enough to say into the phone, tone sharp.  
  
“Who are you talking to?” Peter asks, stepping forward.  
  
“No one,” Jared answers a little too fast, backing into his room.  
  
Peter follows, setting his jaw and reaching out for the phone, every move paralleling Jared’s as the other man continues to draw back.  
  
“No,” Jared snaps at him.  
  
Peter raises his eyebrows, “Yes.”  
  
They quickly reach some sort of wordless stand off, paused in front of Jared’s bed with nowhere else to go in the room. Peter tries to see the screen, figure out the name, but Jared has it turned into his neck, hiding any clue from view.  
  
That is, until he hears a familiar tiny voice yelling at Jared from the speakers.  
  
“Is that Janie?” Peter asks in surprise, reaching for the phone again.  
  
Jared makes an odd noise before he tries to retreat backward again, falling into the bed he’d apparently already forgotten was blocking any sort of escape.  
  
The phone ends up ignored as they eye each other, Jared sprawled across the bed and Peter looking down at him in surprise. He's momentarily distracted by the way Jared actually starts to flush, the red spreading up his neck even as he determinedly makes defiant eye contact.  
  
Peter recovers first and calls the bluff as Janie says something else, making another grab for the phone while Jared’s distracted. However, it doesn’t work so well when Jared somehow uses a crazy move that he probably copied from a movie, elbowing him in the stomach and rolling him onto his back with surprisingly strong thighs; Peter quickly finding himself the one looking up in shock.  
  
“Lucha girl,” Jared breathes out in short explanation, staring down at him.  
  
Peter nods, slightly winded, one hand still attempting to get the phone away from Jared, the other have subconsciously fitted onto Jareds hip. He carefully removes it, flattening his palm against the comforter.  
  
“Why are you talking to Janie?” Peter asks, shifting so Jared’s knee isn’t jabbing him in the ribs, eventually letting go of the phone when it’s clear Jared isn’t going to give it up.  
  
Jared’s mouth twists in such a predatory way that Peter suddenly finds himself uncomfortable, wondering how hard it would be to throw Jared off and just bolt, because this... This is digging up some fantasies he hadn’t even been aware he had.  
  
“I can hear you, asshat,” Janie’s voice sounds through the room.  
  
Peter blinks at the volume and makes eye contact with a similarly baffled Jared. “Janie why are you talking to Jared?” He rushes to ask before Jared can take her off of speaker.  
  
“Damn it,” Jared breathes in irritation.  
  
Janie doesn’t answer for a few moments, and Peter’s worried that she’s hung up.  
  
“Private business,” Janie finally answers, much to his irritation.  
  
He grabs the phone when Jared reluctantly offers it as he rolls off Peter to smoothly settle next to him, staring at the ceiling. Peter twitches a little at the friction, hopes Jared didn’t notice, and brings the phone up, leaving it on speaker and setting it on his chest.  
  
“Nothing good happens when you two talk,” Peter says in what might be legitimate pain. “Were you guys talking about me?”  
  
“Not everything is about you,” Janie answers sarcastically, nearly in perfect beat with Jared answering in an affirmative.  
  
Peter turns to give Jared a narrow look, waiting for a more detailed explanation.  
  
“I thought you were going to deny this to your grave,” Janie asks, sounding oddly disappointed.  
  
Jared shrugs, although Janie can’t see that, so Peter rolls his eyes, translating, “He shrugged.”  
  
“I didn’t say I was going to say what it was about,” Jared explains, an obnoxious smirk toying at the corner of his lips.  
  
Peter’s not sure if he wants to punch him or kiss him. It’s a feeling he experiences often, though he hasn’t leaned so far toward the kissing option in a while. He blames the fact that he’s just discovered that Jared learned how to be a sex ninja from a wrestler.  
  
“Are you guys making out,” Janie asks into the silent space.  
  
Peter grimaces, rolling his eyes towards the dresser.  
  
“I have a better question,” Jared starts, in a tone that Peter has learned to dread over the years.  
  
“Well, by all means,” Janie encourages dryly.  
  
“Why would you agree to go out with Peter if you thought he was gay?”  
  
Peter actually scoffs in surprise, looking over at Jared with an incredulous look.  
  
There’s a significant, worrying pause from Janie. “I never said I thought he was gay; I just said he was in love with a guy.”  
  
“I don’t know, sounds like kind of the same thing,”  Jared responds to her, before turning to him, suspiciously smug about something. “What do you think, Peter?”  
  
“Loving one guy doesn’t make you gay,” Peter says stiffly, before he quickly realizes he probably should have denied the love first and foremost because Jared’s jaw has sort of fallen open and the phone’s just elicited a victorious cackle.  
  
“Hah,” Janie crows in what is practically a shriek. “I win! In your face, Jared.”  
  
“What the hell are you all doing in here, some kind of long distance sleepover?” Carmen asks from the doorway, arms crossed. He wonders how long she’s been there, kind of dreads it really. “Painting nails, talking about boys? Turning your speaker up so loud that her voice breaks the mirror in the bathroom?”  
  
“Don’t worry, I was just hanging up,” Janie assures her, voice still smug. “Oh, and Jared is PoloQueen.” She hangs up an instant later, a soft beep of the phone marking her exit and the fact that Peter probably has to actually talk now.  
  
A quick glance to Jared confirms that he isn’t exactly looking forward towards it either, judging by the wide eyes that have returned to the ceiling.  
  
“What does that mean?” Carmen asks in confusion, drawing their attention for a moment.  
  
“Ask Pindar,” Peter says just as Jared does. When they look at eachother, Peter finds himself trying not to smile, because _damn_ he’s so stupid sometimes.  
  
Carmen gives them a narrow look as she leans off the doorjam, closing the door almost pointedly as she mutters, “I _will_ find out.”  
  
“Good luck,” Jared calls out after her sarcastically.  
  
In the ensuing silence, Peter tries to rewind the last few minutes and organize what the hell just happened, but finds all that he can concentrate on is the fact that Janie and Jared have apparently been best friends online.  
  
“You’re friends with Janie?” Peter he’s asking before he can stop himself. He feels Jared shift onto his side and glances over to see the unamused expression he knew the question would inspire. He looks back to the ceiling, “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”  
  
“That’s what you’re going to concentrate on?” Jared asks flatly.  
  
“Still trying to wrap my head around it,” Peter answers honestly.  
  
“Great,” Jared mutters, shifting so that he’s lying he’s face down and no doubt trying to drown himself in bedclothes. "This is just great."  
  
Peter frowns, taking a deep breath, “So why-?”  
  
“I don’t know,” comes the muffled reply. “It just got out of hand.”  
  
Peter covers his forehead with the heel of his palm, staring at the ceiling and wishing it’d give him some sort of existential advice. “How does that get out of hand?”  
  
Tension rises with every silent moment, air practically being sucked out of the room the longer his question goes unanswered, and Peter just about wants to shake Jared by the time his head peeks out from under the pillow.  
  
“You know how you joked about signing up and pretending to be a hot secretary,” Jared asks quietly.  
  
“Paralegal,” Peter corrects before he can stop himself. “Wait, how does gossip about sleeping with yourself end up with - With this?”  
  
“Okay to be clear, everyone already thinks we’re fucking,” Jared says holding up a placating hand. “I’m not even joking - or at least everyone said they thought so - and then I just got really caught up in wanting to be like- the cool kid? I guess. Attention is really addicting, even when it’s sort of pretend.”  
  
“And Janie?”  
  
“I don’t _know_ , I think she and Swatello were simultaneously mocking me and trying to matchmake us- I don’t get it either,” Jared trails off, covering his face with a hand. “I’m never going to be able to look at Swatello the same.”  
  
“Swatello?” Peter repeats in disbelief. “How does- ? Ugh,” he reaches over and pulls a pillow over Jared’s head, tired of seeing his face right now. He’s barely putting any pressure but Jared struggles like he’s trying to kill him, pinching the soft skin on the inside of Peter’s bicep. When he sits up, hair is standing at all angles and glaring like he didn’t absolutely deserve that a million times over, he crosses his arms in irritation, giving Peter a scathing look.  
  
Peter ignores it, mouth twisting, “But do you still- ?”  
  
Jared stops him with a hastily thrown out hand covering his mouth, “Please do not make this any more uncomfortable.” He takes the hand back after a long moment, looking at his knees.  
  
Peter glances over, brow furrowing as he tries to resolve that with the last few years,  “I thought you didn’t.”  
  
“Yeah, I kind of got that,” Jared mutters, curling in on himself and looking even smaller than normal.  
  
Peter lets out a slow breath, “Why wouldn’t you... I don’t understand what’s going on anymore.”  
  
“Welcome to the club, buddy,” Jared sighs, chewing on his cheek. He clenches his hands a few times, toying with his phone. “Read Janie’s texts,” he says, glancing over at Peter as he drops the phone onto his stomach.  
  
Peter picks up the phone, holding his gaze on Jared for a few cursory moments before he clicks to the texts, slowly reading backwards through them until he gets to one marked two weeks ago reading: ‘I know you stole my name plaque asshole’.  
  
He reads through them once more, only really understanding about half the conversation, and leans back onto the pillow in thought, screen going dark in his hands after a few moments as he wonders what to say.  
  
The whole family thing had just been something he thought would eventually happen to him, that would be part of being successful. It was something everyone else seemed to expect, so he did too; although, he’s pretty sure that even years ago he’d known it’d be this - Jared and him - that was actual success. Honestly, he could still be defending back-alley hobos pro bono and he'd be happy as long as it was with Jared.  
  
Jared clicks his tongue, snatching the phone out of his hand. “So, there it is, mystery solved.” He half heartedly shoves at Peter, touching him for barely a moment. “Get off my bed.”  
  
“You know,” Peter starts, grabbing Jared’s wrist as it passes over his chest, “I don’t think I’m going to.”  
  
Jared groans reluctantly, but doesn’t try to pull his hand back. “Please don’t make this about feelings, dude.”  
  
“I think it sort of calls for it,” Peter points out, leaning up on his free elbow and looking at Jared. “Why didn’t you just say something, do something?”  
  
“Kind of late, don’t you think?” Jared sighs, pulling his hand away. “I mean, it’s not like you’ve really-” He grimaces, rolling his eyes. “It was a long time ago.”  
  
“I barely even remember what I said,” Peter mutters, rubbing the heel of his hand against his forehead. “About the ‘happy families’ shit, I mean.”  
  
“Honestly, neither do I, but it must have been pretty convincing,” Jared reveals wryly, twirling the phone in his hand. “But you did end up trying to marry Janie, so.”  
  
Peter sighs, ignoring the way something in his chest twists almost painfully at Jared's badly hidden bitterness. “Probably would have fallen apart the minute she tried to make me leave the cave, anyway,” he assures him, a little pissed off at Jared, but mostly at himself. He scoffs, “I can’t even imagine actually doing that.”  
  
Jared looks at him sideways, shrugging awkwardly, “Your name’s still on the mortgage.”  
  
Peter rolls his eyes, huffing, “I’m serious.”   
  
“I know,” Jared mutters, shifting slightly when Peter raises an eyebrow. “It’s not like I think about it, or anything,” he says, rubbing a hand through his hair.  
  
Peter’s pretty sure that Jared meant to lie more convincingly, because he refuses believe for one minute the entire chat room hoax was only because Jared wanted to be popular. While Jared had to have stolen parts of that writing from somewhere - he’s pretty over the top, but not this over the top - Peter has no doubts that there is more behind it than simple vanity.  
  
If Jared had been claiming to be hooking up with Scarlett Johannson - then yeah, he’d believe it, but not with himself.  
  
“I think-” Peter starts, looking over.  
  
“No,” Jared interrupts promptly, trying to stop him speaking with a sharp elbow to his side.  
  
Peter winces, rubbing under his ribs. “You’ve been making up _stories_ ,” he says, bravely budging slightly closer to Jared. “Anyone would consider that thinking, a lot even.”  
  
“Shut up,” Jared denies. He glances at Peter for tense moment, though relaxes soon after, shoulders shifting slightly forward. “Not a _lot_.”  
  
“It is,” Peter wheedles, turning on his side and pointedly tapping Jared’s thigh, his fingers soon finding purchase just above the knee, curling around muscle.  
  
Jared startles a bit at the touch, glancing at Peter’s hand before looking him in the eye. “Maybe,” he allows, and hesitates for a moment before sliding down onto his back next to Peter, giving a look that’s practically a dare, one hand behind his head.  
  
Peter smirks a little, deciding to give up the pretense of a tease and raising an eyebrow, “Why do I always have to make the first move?”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jared says as if he didn’t hear right, turning his head. “Who kissed who in the alleyway outside the Avco?”  
  
Peter leans up on his elbow, happily conceding with Jared’s whim and moving closer, unable to hold back a wry grin, “But that was twenty years ago.”  
  
Jared rolls his eyes, lifting up a hand and lazily pulling Peter towards him by the shoulder, “Come on, we had a super unfun all-nighter last night and I don’t know how much longer I can stay awake.”  
  
“I pulled an all-nighter,” Peter disagrees, one hand folding itself next to the one behind Jared’s head as he leans down. “You made shit up on the internet.”  
  
Jared gives rolls his eyes, hand sliding up from Peter’s shoulder to go around his neck, pulling him down into a kiss. He’s just as impatient as he always was, barely giving Peter any time to appreciate the fact that they’re kissing at all before he’s opening his mouth, encouraging Peter to do the same with a soft nip on his upper lip.  
  
Peter groans, thumb brushing Jared’s cheek as he tilts his head for a better angle, and smiles when he feels Jared’s fingers tighten in his hair.  
  
A moment later, Peter has just enough time to feel the hand next to his disappear before it’s pulling up his shirt, where warm fingers soon slide up his abdomen, pressing against his stomach.  
  
It’s an obvious attempt to gain some perceived upper hand, and Peter lets him have it, content to enjoy the attention, though he’s soon putting more of his weight on Jared’s chest as he leans off his elbow to scrape his fingers up Jared’s side.  
  
The score is evened somewhat, with Jared gasping softly at the friction, but before Peter even realizes what’s happening, the hand that had previously been lying next to Jared’s head now finds itself gripped in his hair as Jared seemingly only shifts his hips a bit before Peter’s the one on his back, again.  
  
Peter inhales in surprise, blinking up at an extremely satisfied looking Jared, and has little time to recover before a  hand soon starts pulling at his hair, forcing his head back to expose his neck. Jared’s other hand deftly unbuttons Peter’s shirt, trailing up his now exposed chest with zero reservation as he leans down to start pressing soft kisses up his neck, soon finding purchase at his jaw.  
  
He eventually lets Peter have his head back, hand lax under his neck, simply running his thumb up and down in a way that’s almost as distracting as the kissing.  
  
In turn, Peter catches one of Jared’s legs under his own, forcing him down and wishing he’d the forethought to forego the belt today as Jared apparently had this morning. The momentary compliment soon falls to the wayside as he unbuttons Jared’s stupid waistcoat, wishing for once that they still wore cheap clothing as they had years ago, thin cloth and lazy stitching that had been so much easier to just rip off.  
  
It’s almost embarrassingly Victorian, the way he stares when Jared’s collarbone is finally visible, trailing his fingers over bare shoulders.  
  
Both hands soon card through Jared’s hair again, though, as teeth nip just under Peter’s ear, lips moving in a near silent, bragging whisper, “Jared: two; Peter: nil.”

 


End file.
